


Talk Story

by CharlotteCordelier



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen, I don't know man, things HAPPENED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteCordelier/pseuds/CharlotteCordelier
Summary: “We can’t live here. It’s so…sunny.”“I know.”“Felicity.”“I know.”William and Felicity get relocated. It's not great.





	Talk Story

The blast of tropical air struck them full force. It was like being slapped with hot bag of shredded coconut. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” William asked.

“We will talk about language later,” Felicity replied. “But as far as I know, ARGUS doesn’t fucking kid about anything.”

“We can’t live here. It’s so…sunny.”

“I know.”

“Felicity.”

“I know.”

“Did they send us on vacation? Is this like...beach exile?” He looked around and plucked at his t-shirt, which was already sticking to him in the humidity. A flower the size of a chair was growing two feet away. “Do people really live here?”

“Apparently. The important thing is that...you know who...doesn’t have any power out here. We’re firmly in the realm of other criminal syndicates. And close to several secret facilities. I hope Lyla packed sunscreen for us. Keep your eye out, our ride should be around here somewhere.”

William stared at Felicity. At least she looked uncomfortable, too. She was already shedding layers as they transitioned into the sunlight. Around them, people in loose shirts and skirts walked by. American tourists with ugly t-shirts and fanny packs mingled in ticket lines with Japanese tourists in avante garde dresses and enormous hats. Everyone seemed to be speaking, but none of it sounded like English. ARGUS might as well have dropped them in a foreign country.

“There it is,” Felicity said, and waved at the shuttle. William turned to look but since, unlike his stepmother, he wasn’t wearing four inch heels, his view was blocked by a large sign.

_ Aloha and Welcome to Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport! _

 

* * *

 

The house was okay. It was tiny. It had wood floors and all the windows were made of horizontal glass shutters. They opened them first thing, but it didn’t seem like it was having any effect on the general stillness of the hot air. There was a tiny backyard and...the washer and dryer were out there? But why?

“Are you hungry?” Felicity asked from the kitchen.

“Yeah. I want Top Pot,” he said. He knew he sounded sulky and maybe even spoiled. But he was too tired to do anything about it.

“Lyla told me about a thing they have here called malasadas. It sounds...donut adjacent.”

“Maybe later.”

“Okay!” she said brightly. “Well, I’m going to hop in the shower. See if I can get the airplane smell off.”

William dragged his bags into his room, the smaller one, and looked at his suitcase. It was small. It was depressingly small. They didn’t let him bring anything personalized, or memorable, so there went all his Flash gear. It didn’t bother him when they left, but now it was like the further he got from home, the sadder he became. And Starling wasn’t even his home really.

“Oh son of a bitch!” Felicity screamed.

William jumped upright and froze. He stayed frozen until he realized that neither Raisa nor his dad was coming to Felicity’s rescue. There was only him. William wiped his hands on his thighs and ran into the bathroom. Felicity was wrapped in her towel, pressed against the back wall of the shower, staring at the enormous red centipede slowly circumnavigating the sink.

“Shit!” William said, backing into the hallway.

“Language!” She had her hand over he heart like it was going to jump out of her chest. “I was not expecting scorpions.”

“I think it’s a centipede.”

“I don’t care what it is! I don’t want it in the house!”

Felicity was looking at him like he was supposed to do something. William shrugged, palms up. She groaned.

“I wish your dad were here.”

“Me, too.”

“Can you go out and grab one of my sneakers? Or like...anything else that will help me do scorpion murder?”

Once Felicity had committed her insecticide, William went back to his room. The last thing he wanted to do was think about Raisa or Dad, but watching Felicity kill that centipede had somehow reminded him. She was obviously terrified, but she bit her lip and did what had to be done. And shrieked a little.

The only one he wanted to remember less than Dad or Raisa was his mom, but now he did. It was the look on Felicity’s face, he was pretty sure. It was the same one his mom wore when she had done something she didn’t want to do, knowing there was no one else around to do it.

Just then, William hated everyone.

 

* * *

 

_ “I am so sorry,” Dad said. _

_ “I don’t understand.” _

_ “I never, ever wanted to leave you. You know that, right?” _

_ “Dad, please.” _

_ “I never, ever wanted to leave you. All I wanted was to stay with you. But I had to keep you safe, too. Do you understand?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ “Say it back to me.” _

_ “You never wanted to leave. You always wanted to stay.” _

_ “Thank you. Thank you.” _

_ “What’s going to happen now?” _

_ “You and Felicity are going to go somewhere safe for a while. Our friend Lyla will help.” _

_ “Where?” _

_ “I don’t know. I won’t know. William, I know it’s not fair, but can I ask you a favor?” _

_ “Sure.” _

_ “Felicity loves you. And I know you like her. I can’t be there right now. So you have to be there for her.” _

_ “I don’t know what that means.” _

_ “She forgets to eat lunch, unless you put something on the counter in front of the coffee maker. She forgets to buy cream for her coffee. She doesn’t know how to cook. Anything.” _

_ “Yeah, I remember the ziti incident.” _

_ “Felicity can cover everything else. You know that, right? _

_ “I know that.” _

_ “I love you so much, William.” _

 

* * *

 

Their day ended pretty early, jetlagged and trapped between time zones. But the noises were too weird. He didn’t recognize the insects and he didn’t like the way the enormous green leaves rustled. It felt like someone else’s science experiment. He got up and crept towards Felicity’s bedroom, which was not actually any bigger than his. She was staring at her phone when he peeked. She wasn’t even scrolling, like usual. Just staring. 

“I can’t sleep.”

“Do you want to crash in here?” Felicity sounded hopeful.

“Not really,” he admitted. He didn’t know much about being a stepson, but he thought he’d probably passed the age limit for sharing a mattress with your stepmother.

“Want to watch a movie?”

“Not really.”

“You want a malasada?”

“Isn’t it a little late?”

“Oh, my sweet summer child. Let me introduce you to Uber Eats.”

Malasadas did not suck. They microwaved them very briefly and ate them in the kitchen with cold glasses of milk, as recommended by Yelp. The quantity consumed was wildly irresponsible, but it was pretty clear that Felicity didn’t care and that she was working up to something.

“I didn’t have a dad growing up. I don’t know why I said that. But I thought you should know. I know you saw them together, at the wedding reception, but that’s a new development. He left when I saw seven and I didn’t see him again until he resurfaced as a semi-super-villain.”

“Didn’t I meet him at the wedding reception?” William couldn’t reconcile the memory of the affable man he vaguely remembered and  _ semi-super-villain _ .

“Yep.”

“Wow.” He bit into a fresh pastry, not sure where this was going. His stepmother’s stories and general conversation could take alarming turns. 

“Your dad didn’t ditch you,” Felicity clarified. “He did everything he could to stay.”

“Sure.” William felt like he was going to choke or maybe even cry, which he wouldn’t do. He left his malasada on the countertop and went to the bathroom where he spit out the un-chewed bite and brushed his teeth. Without looking up, he went to his room where he climbed into bed and focused on not crying until he passed out and it was morning.

 

* * *

 

It was going to be a long summer. Felicity tried, she really did, William could tell. But he didn’t want to learn to surf. He didn’t want to learn to snorkel. He definitely didn’t want to try and meet other kids in the neighborhood, all of whom seemed impossibly confident and comfortable in their surroundings. William saw them at the corner store when he ran out for Felicity’s half and half and mochi. He just wanted to stay in his room and do his summer reading for next year and all the other years, too.

His stepmother seemed faded a little, less bright in their new surroundings. She went to the beach some days and got a tan and started walking dogs in the neighborhood for cash. Cash, she said with a wink, ARGUS didn’t need to know anything about. It all went into an empty kimchi jar that she kept in the toilet tank. When William had found it, he’d asked her, but all she said was that some white trash habits died harder than others. 

Always, constantly, irritatingly, she was positive and encouraging and supportive. Just like his real mom. It pissed him off to no end, and he didn’t even understand why he was so pissed off. He just knew that he spent at least half of his waking hours wishing he could break every stupid shutter window he saw.

So it was kind of a surprise when he came home from a trip to the corner store and found Felicity in the backyard throwing thrift store ceramics at the house. She turned to reach for another chipped mug and caught sight of him and froze, her mouth a perfect O. The pile of broken pottery underneath her bedroom window made him think that she’d been doing this every day when he went out for groceries.

“Felicity?” he asked.

“I’m sorry you got stuck with me,” she blurted out. “I’m so sorry your mom died. And I’m so pissed at your dad for doing this to us, which I probably shouldn’t admit, but if he were here right now I swear I would beat him to death with my shoe. And now you’re stuck with me and I don’t know anything about real parenting. I only know about math homework and how to cheat in PE. Honestly, whenever we were hanging out together, I was just trying to make sure you didn’t get scurvy.”

“Felicity.” William smiled. “At least I don’t have scurvy?”

Then his stepmother burst into tears. Not movie crying or the brave one-single-teardrop tears he’d seen when they were saying goodbye to dad. It was even worse than the way mom used to cry when she watched  _ Grey’s Anatomy _ . This was like...hungry baby crying or funeral crying maybe. He’d never seen an adult cry so hard before.

_ What would dad do? _

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m already fucking this up,” she said, hiding her face in her hands. “I’m supposed to be comforting you.”

“Maybe we should take turns?”

“Okay,” she laughed a little and wiped some of the snot off her face.

“Felicity…”

“Yeah?”

“I only ever… I’m kind of used to having just one parent. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat hard. “Hey, you want a plate to throw?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Language.”

 

* * *

 

School was awful. There were locals, there were military kids, and then there was William. It wasn’t that anyone was rude to him. It was just clear that he was new. None of the cliques appeared to know which should absorb him. He was sure the general categories were the same (high-achievers, art kids, popular kids, stoners, jocks, etc.) but there were some additional groups and he couldn’t tell who belonged where by looking at them. None of the clothes were familiar. He couldn’t pronounce a lot of the names. The boy next to him in science was named Kale, but it was pronounced KAH-lay. He let William borrow a pencil.

At lunch, approximately half of the food in everyone’s lunch box was strange to him. Also, approximately half of the students lapsed immediately into pidgin. William knew some of the words, but not the way they were put together. He’d never felt more awkward or more white, which was a thing that he didn’t know you could feel.

“Hey,” Felicity said when he trudged in from the bus. She’s wearing the same sweats as this morning. “How was it?”

“I hate it here.” There was no point in trying to hide it.

“Oh?” she asked carefully.

“I’m the new haole kid. And they haven’t decided whether I’m a good haole or a bad haole. And I don’t know how to act like a good haole.”

“Me either,” she admitted. “Our ID cards are here, though. So we can find a place of our own to lease and I can start looking at jobs.”

“I guess you can do computer stuff anywhere.”

“I could.” She fiddled with her rings. “But, um, I can’t. I can’t do anything that might give us away. I can’t fix computers. I can’t code. I can’t do IT anything.”

“Oh no.” William’s stomach sank. The first thing he’d understood about his stepmother, then just his dad’s girlfriend, was how much she loved her tech.

“They made me give up my usernames.” Her voice sounded empty. It would have made dad so sad to hear it. “I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” he said immediately. “I know how much you like trolling incels on reddit.”

“How did you know about that?”

“You gave me a two hour lecture on the red pill metaphor and the Wachowski sisters.”

“You were listening?”

William sighed. He missed his mom.

 

* * *

 

Ms. Pascual wanted to meet William’s mother. For the purposes of being undercover, Felicity was his mom, not his stepmom or his dad’s girlfriend or whatever. It was still weird. But when your teacher wanted to meet your ‘mom’ and your ‘mom’ was Felicity… He was a little nervous. 

Felicity arrived dressed for some kind of Sterling mayoral function. Her lipstick was very, very pink. Ms. Pascual was wearing a long skirt and flip-flops, which everyone here called slippers, or slippahs. William braced for disaster.

“I’m Felicity.” She stuck her manicured hand out for Ms. Pascual to shake.

“My name is Marites,” said Ms. Pascual. “Those are lovely shoes.”

“Thank you! I wore them in case I needed to, you know, do battle. But I hope it’s not that kind of parent teacher conference?”

“No, it’s not,” Ms. Pascual confirmed. “Let’s sit down.”

The three of them sat down at a work table closest to the oscillating fan that supported the hard that the classroom’s window air-conditioner was doing. A drop of sweat rolled down his back.

“I want to start by saying that William is a great kid,” Ms. Pascual said.

“My son,” Felicity said, “is the greatest. Did you know he can cook? I pack him a lunch and he leaves me a lunch every day.”

 

* * *

 

One morning, before he ran out the door, Felicity grabbed him and kissed him on the top of his head. William was kind of frozen.

“Too much?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

That was their thing now. On the way out of the door, he stopped for a kiss. She put notes in his lunch that were actually sudoku squares or word scrambles. Sometimes she remembered the note, but forgot the sandwich. One time he got a lunch bag full of nothing but baby carrots.

Kale laughed hysterically and gave William half his PB&J. It was actually kind of a treat, since they didn’t keep peanut anything in the house. 

“No peanut buddah?” Kale asked, when William explained.

“My mom’s allergic.”

“You want try lumpia? My aunty made.”

Lumpia looked awful and it tasted amazing. Kale laughed again at the look on William’s face. After that, Kale’s mom started putting lumpia in his lunch more often, and in greater quantities. William did not complain.

“I wen tell her about the carrots,” Kale explained.

Felicity started putting apples in his lunch, too. She must have remembered the scurvy.

* * *

 

 

His stepmom mostly cried in the shower. Sometimes they’d be in the middle of something, like math homework or iZombie or Never Alone, and she would just stand up and announce she needed a shower. William wasn’t stupid, but he appreciated that she was trying.

One day he got home from school and let himself in and saw that she hadn’t made it to the shower. She was just lying face down on the carpet, sobbing. William had never seen a grown up do that before. Even on TV.

William ran through it mentally. There was half and half in the fridge. He’d left out a bagel with cream cheese under saran wrap. He’d done what he was supposed to do.

“Felicity?” his voice came out squeaky.

“I’m okay!” she said, immediately pushing herself upright, putting her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I was sick. But I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

“Can you flush the toilet?” she asked weakly. “If I have to go back in there, I’m going puke again.”

William flushed the toilet and grabbed a towel and brought it out for her. She wiped her face and breathed shallowly through her nose.

“I’m so sorry. Would you bring me the phone from the safe under my bed? The code is 0-5-1-6-8-5.”

“0-5-1-6-8-5,” he repeated. He hadn’t know there was a safe under the bed. Inside it were four passports in different colors, two guns, and a clamshell phone. He took the phone to Felicity. She flipped it open and texted a number that she knew by heart.

“I’m sorry the bagel made you sick,” William said. “I smelled the cream cheese and I thought it was fine.”

Felicity looked at him and for the first time he saw pity on her face.

 

* * *

 

Lyla came in the middle of the night. She didn’t have a car and she didn’t make a sound when she slipped in the front door. Felicity and William were waiting for her in the living room. Lyla greeted them warmly and then they all sat down.

“Felicity, do you want William to stay?”

“Yes,” she said, no hesitation. “He’s Number One.”

“We’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek,” William explained. “Felicity likes to be Captain Picard.”

“Okay,” Lyla said. “Felicity, do you want to start?”

Felicity sat very still and fiddled with her hands.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“No,” she said. “No, William. I’m pregnant.”

“Oh,” William said. “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You have put up with so much. And this is just...another thing.”

“But I’ll have a brother or a sister?”

“That’s the idea,” she said. “But it’s going to be harder.”

“Yeah,” William said. “But we won’t be alone anymore.”

“No.” Felicity was grinning. “We won’t.”


End file.
